Find your affiliates and affiliate programs in all the right places --As humans, many of us hope to inherently trust one another. We’d like to believe that someone’s word is good. That a check will cash. That we’ll again see the man who said he’d pay us tomorrow. If you’ve spent even a smidgeon of time working as a freelancer, you know this isn’t always the case. People pay late, if at all. You turn in work, and the source contests it. In order to avoid disappointment and fraud, make sure you are using a legitimate network to find both merchants and affiliates.
Designing and developing your blog / niche site – When it comes to themes and designing your blog/website, if you want to go big, and get real pro right out of the gate, I suggest you look into the Rainmaker Platform, which is what THIS website is built with. To keep things a little more simple, once you’ve got started with Bluehost, you can visit StudioPress to get your site looking pretty. The fit must be right between you and the merchant who is going to benefit from your promotional efforts, or it simply won’t work. The easiest way to begin with affiliate marketing is to select an affiliate network. Many affiliate networks exist, some which are tied to well-known companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple, while others specialize in specific types of products and services. Nick Loper is a veteran affiliate marketer, author, and a lifelong student in the game of business. His latest role is as Chief Side Hustler at SideHustleNation.com, a growing community of part-time business owners. Need a leg-up in getting your biz off the ground but short on time? Grab Nick’s free "Cliff’s Notes"-style guide to the world’s best business books here. Follow Nick on Twitter at @nloper. Google Adwords can be used to drive targeted traffic to a sales page. You simply make an ad in your adwords account then use your affiliate link in the target page URL of the ad. Obviously, you will have to continuously measure the conversions and see if the campaign cost is less than the campaign profit in order to keep the campaign running but I am sure you get the idea.

The following affiliate marketing examples come from five different bloggers who are in different stages of their blogging experiences. The dollar amounts shared do not represent their total incomes, but rather a portion of their affiliate marketing income only. All of these bloggers make significantly more than the amounts shown. Yes, it’s possible to make money blogging!

You may wonder if it’s worth adding affiliate links when your book review isn’t going to be flattering. My response is: sure, why not? Sometimes people’s tastes will be different than yours, and they may want to check out the book anyway. Or, they may click on the link to see if the reviews at Amazon agree with yours, at which point they may wander off and buy something else at the store. You’ll still get credit and make a percentage of the sale. Here’s the deal… If your chosen niche keyword has a certain amount of competition, more than you would usually be happy with, but you are super passionate about the niche you’re thinking of getting involved in, go for it! In my mind passion will always overcome plain old competition. It’s the passion behind Zappos that’s made them the driving force behind shoe sales online – even though there are a ton of people selling shoes online.

LinkConnector is something of a mixed bag, so it’s probably best for experienced affiliates who have become disillusioned with other networks and are looking to expand. LinkConnector’s bizarre mix of high-quality products and a low-quality dashboard make it hard to truly assess its viability, but their exclusive deals with some vendors can make it a true home run for publishers working in certain niches. This book is a new entrant in our top 10 book list. The book teaches you to learn making money with affiliate marketing and become a successful marketer from scratch. You’ll learn how to create content and drive traffic using free and paid methods. The new book is the No. 1 bestseller on the topic while I was updating this page. A recommended read! I read this title and expected an awesome community of runners sharing their glory stories of braving the snow and rain to log in miles. Instead I’m directed to a boring treadmill site. This site is about 5 pages and a couple of additional pages for reviews for treadmills. The reviews are the only pages with any kind of lengthy content and those are still only around 800 words. The main redeeming quality about this site, is they are focusing on high price items so even a single sale of a treadmill is a nice commission. This is another example of a website you could make in a weekend. It’s motivating though because you know you can do better, right? To those on the outside, affiliate marketing can seem like a black box. It’s inner workings are mysterious to most marketers and in many companies it’s not treated with the same seriousness as other channels. Some marketers, only familiar with the bad reputation acquired by some industry players in the 2000s, deride it as a source of spam and little more.

Nearly everyone knows that some 25% of all online sales, and for many book titles 50% or more of their sales [source] happen on Amazon.com. Amazon also ranks books by sales, and I thought it’d be interesting to go to the e-tail giant’s website, and see what are the top five books on affiliate marketing. If we go there, choose “Book” as category, and search for “affiliate marketing”:

I read this title and expected an awesome community of runners sharing their glory stories of braving the snow and rain to log in miles. Instead I’m directed to a boring treadmill site. This site is about 5 pages and a couple of additional pages for reviews for treadmills. The reviews are the only pages with any kind of lengthy content and those are still only around 800 words. The main redeeming quality about this site, is they are focusing on high price items so even a single sale of a treadmill is a nice commission. This is another example of a website you could make in a weekend. It’s motivating though because you know you can do better, right?
Amazon Affiliate Sites are raking in the cash by taking part in the Amazon Associates program, or otherwise known as Amazon Affiliates. Absolutely anyone can take part in this program and start monetising their website within minutes. Below we are going to look at some of the most successful sites involved in the program so you can see exactly what they're doing right so you can know how to become a successful amazon affiliate.
The website has lots of affiliate links to Amazon. So, when people look at their reviews and go to buy something from Amazon, they earn commissions. In addition, they have for sure the highest commission rates from Amazon and from other partner sites because they have so huge volume. Top Ten Reviews also uses ads and I think they make a nice income with them as well. 8Binary offers any level trader the opportunity to use market leading trading platforms to manage risk and maximize profits. With a truly global reach and renowned customer service, 8Binary is a secure and safe way to trade Binary Options. Committed to offering all of its clients the safest and most user-friendly experience, 8Binary is the trusted name in the market. Whether you are a beginner, retail investor or a professional trading entity, 8Binary guarantees the best user experience possible. Affiliate marketing is also called "performance marketing", in reference to how sales employees are typically being compensated. Such employees are typically paid a commission for each sale they close, and sometimes are paid performance incentives for exceeding objectives.[21] Affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose products or services they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers' internal sales department.
From just the one keyword, this websites is probably getting close to 20k hits per month. I am sure they are generating just as much traffic from various other keywords as well. When all is said and done, this website could easily be a $10k per month site. Its hard to say – that prediction could be way high or even way low. But I would not be surprised if this site is pulling in $10k or more per month.
Market research/networking — When you become an affiliate marketer, you are hoping to establish yourself as a voice of authority in that specific industry or niche. In order to do so, you need to have a good grasp on who you’re talking to. Who are you trying to sell these products to? What kinds of copy or advertisements do they respond to? Do they prefer email marketing over social media marketing, or vice versa? Market research is a part of any advertising strategy. Now is your chance to team up with The Home Depot and share in the continued growth of the most successful nationally-known home improvement retailer. By joining our affiliate program, you can start earning a profit on every qualified sale you refer to homedepot.com. It is a simple process, and the more customers you have purchase - the more you earn!
Nothing worse than Debt. The one thing that takes from you all of your financial freedom. You spend the younger years of your life investing in a great education. Hoping that in the future you can have a great career that pays really well. But instead, you find yourself stuck, feeling as though you will be paying off your education debt for the rest of your life.

If I'm building a site with the intention for it to become a brand, I will detail out a minimum of 60 flagship post ideas before I even get started. Flagship content is your amazing content. It's not your everyday posts. It's content targeted at the exact topics your potential user base is searching for and that goes above and beyond in delivering them information on it.

Thanks for a nice job. I am currently promoting some of the affiliate programs listed here and making a few dollars from them. But I must say that making money from affiliate programs is not rocket science; it requires hard work and perseverance. Affiliate marketing keeps evolving daily and any serious affiliate should be ready to change tactics and invest time and money in order to beat the competition. Joining our affiliate program is free and easy to get started. Since we have partnered with TUNE by HasOffers, which is a leading provider of affiliate links and program tracking, you will have access to all the tools you need to start earning through your partnership. Once you join the program, you will gain access to custom tracking links, in a single, simple line of code. You can add the pre-coded lines of HTML code to your website for simple creative banner tracking and use your custom tracking URL links by replacing your regular URL links with affiliate text links within your articles and social media posts. If you run into problems or have questions, you can contact your dedicated affiliate management team for support.
When using affiliate links, the blogger also has control over where these links appear and how they look. Brands that offer affiliate partnerships typically provide a range of banners and titles for affiliates to use and contact affiliates when they have new creative to promote special offers, events and sales. However, you can also include simple text links on your site and EDMs and direct links in your social media posts. The easiest and most common way to start building an audience for a website is via social media. Depending on your niche and industry, you can choose from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and several other niche and location-specific networks. Building up an engaged and interested following on social media is a great opportunity to build relationships and once you have their trust, promote your products and services to them.
The concept of affiliate marketing on the Internet was conceived of, put into practice and patented by William J. Tobin, the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts generated sales in excess of $6 million per year on the Prodigy service. In 1998, PC Flowers and Gifts developed the business model of paying a commission on sales to the Prodigy Network.[4][5]
I have highlighted with red boxes how they are monetizing the site. First I will point out how professional the site looks – it has a custom logo and a very clean look and feel to the site. This helps build trust right away. Secondly, I like how they have the salary data that searchers are looking for right away on top. Then they have the adsense ads immediately following (still above the fold). This is the standard affiliate marketing structure. In this program, the merchant pays the affiliate a percentage of the sale price of the product after the consumer purchases the product as a result of the affiliate’s marketing strategies. In other words, the affiliate must actually get the investor to invest in the product before they are compensated.
Additionally, feel free to seek out conversations with both consumers and other professionals. Send out LinkedIn invitations to those you think might be a good professional contact. Join Twitter conversations that are relevant to your industry or product. Physically attend networking events or conferences you think could result in a stronger network or more informed strategy. You’re a part of a community now, but other people don’t know that unless you show up.
While these models have diminished in mature e-commerce and online advertising markets they are still prevalent in some more nascent industries. China is one example where Affiliate Marketing does not overtly resemble the same model in the West. With many affiliates being paid a flat "Cost Per Day" with some networks offering Cost Per Click or CPM.
I’ve had a passion for photography and cameras since I was a kid, and this was an obvious area for me to build a business in. One of the core activities of affiliate marketing is creating and distributing content, and I can write about photography with a high level of expertise and enthusiasm. You may choose to outsource content creation, and you don’t have to know anything about your niche if you’re prepared to do this. You can also research subjects you aren’t familiar with, but this can be time- consuming and boring. Personally I like to be in control of things and work with subjects I find interesting.
LearnHowToBecome.org is an education website that provides information to prospective students. They have a lot of great content and cover just about every type of education field you can think of when it comes to finding out the best college path in a given profession. A quick look at backlinks shows that they have tons of major educational institutions that they work with, which is a significant portion of their backlinking strategy. The content is top notch, and the website is specifically designed to keep the users interacting with the comparison grids and searching through the best possible schools for their given topic.
Affiliate marketing programs typically work by having the merchant handle all the logistics involved in selling products or services, processing customer orders and payments, and shipping merchandise—all while the affiliate sits back and collects a commission for each agreed-upon action completed by the visitors the affiliate sends to the merchant’s website via an affiliate link. As long as the affiliate has done her homework and chosen a trustworthy affiliate program, she needn’t worry about non-payment.
Now you should have a pretty good idea of what niche you are going to get involved with. It is possible that you haven’t narrowed the list down to a single topic area, but you probably have found a few ideas that you feel real good about. Now at this point, it’s important to get an idea of how much money you can potentially make in your chosen niche. ClickBank is a great place to go to that search. First you browse top products in your category. If you don’t find any offers, that is not a good sign. It could mean that no one has been able to monetize that niche.
Hi, Jamie! Very good list. I needed something like this for 2018 so that I know what to target in the future blogs I create. As for now, I’m comfortable using SiteGround affiliate network and it’s pretty good actually. Their hosting service is pretty much the best considered its price. I’ve tried others but SiteGround stands out. I’ll also try new affiliate networks, something from the list you have just provided. I think Amazon is too saturated at the moment, and I need a better network. 2018 will be interesting indeed. Product promotion — Lastly, we come to what you’re really here for: the opportunity to partner with organizations in selling their products for a portion of the profits. A lot of what we’ve mentioned previously will come into play when deciding exactly how to promote products. You should continue to consider your niche, audience, and goals when choosing how to promote products. You could take the route of being a real product user who reviews items on your site. People tend to trust individuals more than they do brands, and using your site as a sort of product review resource could appeal to the masses.

It can be published as a book, and other people have already suggested what to include into ‘part 2’. As someone who has been asked by other people wanting to promote my products/serviced, I’d love to read about the merchant’s side of AM, e.g. various software that can be used, how to choose affiliate partners, what to include in the agreement, etc.

JVZoo lets you both host and create landing pages on their own website, so it’s far better suited for professional marketers who want to flood the internet with offers, many of them for courses to make money. You don’t need your own website to participate in JVZoo, but you will need to know how to drive traffic to a landing or squeeze page in order to profit from being a JVZoo affiliate. 7. Using above methods, create a spreadsheet - or have a list somewhere you can track the communication between you and potential affiliates. This way if you never get a response after the first time, you can try to contact them again after a few weeks. Generally, this process may take a couple of months to get a response because many contacts are busy and they will not see your emails the first couple of times.

One big difference between SkimLinks and VigLinks, however, is that once you’re approved by the company, you can choose to work with any merchant or program on its platform. SkimLinks has also published a white paper discussing its partnership with Buzzfeed, giving SkimLinks a lot of credibility. SkimLinks also has a higher tier of vetted merchants called “Preferred Partner” and “VIP” that both pay higher commissions than standard merchants.

Put your favorite products front and center. The Points Guy as a “Top Cards” section in the main navigational menu that simply lists the top travel credit cards. It doesn’t bring in as much traffic as some of the other content, but it does okay, it’s an easy place for people to find the most important products for people interested in this sort of thing.
Carly also published an all-encompassing Pinterest Strategies eBook for bloggers who wish to see big results and gain traffic from Pinterest. Affiliate marketing will only work when you have some traffic to your blog. So if you have yet to cross that threshold, I highly recommend Carly’s affordable resource. She used this strategy to grow her blog traffic to 200,000 visitors per month from Pinterest alone! JVZoo was founded in 2011 and has since rocketed to near the top as one of the most popular affiliate programs out there. JVZoo is unusual in that there are no upfront costs for either publishers or merchants (advertisers). JVZoo’s income is exclusively from charging fees (to both the merchant and the affiliate) after a sale has been made. It is also unusual in that it pays commissions “instantly” via PayPal rather than once a week/fortnight/month like other affiliate programs.
The website has lots of affiliate links to Amazon. So, when people look at their reviews and go to buy something from Amazon, they earn commissions. In addition, they have for sure the highest commission rates from Amazon and from other partner sites because they have so huge volume. Top Ten Reviews also uses ads and I think they make a nice income with them as well. When you join an Affiliate program and choose the products that you want to sell, sellers provide you with a unique affiliate code that you can use to refer traffic to the target site. Most affiliate programs will offer ready made text links, banners and other forms of creative copies whereby you only have to copy the code and place it on your website to start referring traffic. When interested visitors click on these links from your site they get redirected to the product site and if they purchase a product or subscribe to a service you as the referrer make a commission.
While there are plenty of websites out there that are doing extremely well, here is a list of 22 websites that I've pulled together for you that I either know are doing very well, or I suspect they are doing very well based on traffic. I am not sure what tactics they are utilizing to achieve the heavy amounts of traffic they receive, but I can tell that they get lots of traffic and with that traffic, a good amount of monthly recurring income. Let's dive in with 22 examples in no particular order.
FriendFinder is an adult-friendly network of dating websites that has a terrific affiliate marketing program, both in terms of customer service and commission rates. Because they rely heavily on affiliates to recruit new members, they treat their affiliates like true business partners. They have a solid reputation for payment and security, and have frequent special offers. Checking into your affiliate account at FriendFinder is always a fun experience, and often a profitable one.

4. Understand profitable problems deeply. It’s not enough to simply know that, for example, males between 18 and 25 are looking for hangover cures. You need to find out what exactly they want in a hangover cure, and the problems they have with current hangover cures. There’s more to it then simply finding your niche, however. You also need to understand the language they use in describing their ideal solution, so you can echo that language back to them in your ad copy, sales page copy, etc.

Designing and developing your blog / niche site – When it comes to themes and designing your blog/website, if you want to go big, and get real pro right out of the gate, I suggest you look into the Rainmaker Platform, which is what THIS website is built with. To keep things a little more simple, once you’ve got started with Bluehost, you can visit StudioPress to get your site looking pretty.

Plus, consumers are more likely to rely on a trusted source for brand information than they are an advertisement. In the current state of influencers and rampant review sites, we’re looking to real people’s opinions more than we are static advertisements or TV commercials. With your affiliates comes the trust of networks they’ve previously established.
So how much is this affiliate earning from these links? If you click on "No Nonsense Body Building" you're taken through to the merchant site. If you then scroll to the bottom of the page you'll see the 'affiliates' link to the affiliate program page. If you follow this, avoid the popup box and wade through the sales pitch for the affiliate program you'll see that the merchant pays 75% commissions on the product, which costs $77, netting the affiliate $53 per sale. You'll also see there is additional revenue to be gained from up-sells and one-time offers.
Online presence — A major step in becoming an affiliate marketer is having your online presence up and running. This includes a website or blog and any social media profiles you deem necessary to the promotion of these products. If you’re unsure or need direction on how to build a professional website, check out our pillar page on how to make a website from scratch. You can create a website through a website builder, which will host your site and allow you to purchase a unique domain name. Good point about reviewing online courses before you promote them to protect your reputation. However, I would like to point out that the level of attention the course creator gives you (the endorser) and what they give to a random customer might be very different. There are so called marketing gurus out there who are extremely skilled at making false promises and not delivering on them. Once they have the endorsement of a few reputed marketers and some ‘lucky’ customers, they can easily get away with ripping other people off with hyped up money making guarantees. I have had a personal experience with this as a customer, but lets not mention names! The point is, when we are promoting someone, we need to do an in-depth due diligence. Only going through their course is not enough. It would be great if there was some kind of a course review site -something like tripadvisor. This is something that the industry really needs – something to make people accountable. A lot of people are losing faith in these online courses. I am staying away from promoting people unless I am very certain of their integrity.
The truth is much more complicated. It’s true that affiliate programs can be sources of phantom revenue and off-brand promotion. But managed properly, they can also make up 5-15 percent of online revenue and have an ROI among the highest of any online channel. CMOs are realizing that affiliate marketing can be an important part of their arsenal and are integrating the channel into their overall marketing strategies.
ive been thinking about this affiliate website thing for quite some time. those gurus make it sound so easy till i started researching reading up a bit here and there. all these things which needs to be done... blogging, pillowing, backlinking, wordpress, finding niches etc etc... the physically doing it on the pc, and finding content and pics and vids etc is whats stressing me out. at the moment im so confused !! haha i read that its best if you decide on a niche on which you have allot of knowledge, like a hobby etc. i dont have hobbies due to working away from home, and i build substations for a living. i cant think of a niche involving substations. are there videos somewhere which nicely shows exactly where to click what while building the website and doing the blogging, pillowing, backlinking etc? and honestly, with all the websites on the net allready, does new websites have a chance in 2014 to make some money?

Luke Kling is Director of Marketing at PeerFly.com and have been working in affiliate management for about 9 years now. Luke is also a developer and blogger. You can find his blog at LukePeerFly.com, an affiliate news aggregate (great source for newbies) at http://affposts.com, and his most recent product to help you build and grow Facebook Pages at http://fptraffic.com. Follow Luke on Twitter at @LukePeerFly.

Developing and monetizing microsites can also garner a serious amount of sales. These sites are advertised within a partner site or on the sponsored listings of a search engine. They are distinct and separate from the organization’s main site. By offering more focused, relevant content to a specific audience, microsites lead to increased conversions due to their simple and straightforward call to action.
Thanks a lot gravity for sharing such useful tips. I am ready, listening your post straight 7 hours now. Finished two ebooks. My question is I have a domain named all in here. I bought this keeping in mind for everything (all niche). Can you suggest me which niche should I choose initially? I loved your video and tips. I'm sure I'm going to do it. Waiting for your reply.
Hi Rae, I think the right niche is the most important step in affiliate marketing. If you choose the wrong niche, you can be doomed from the very beginning. Need a buying niche not just one where people are looking for information. Also you only mentioned it briefly at the end, I think promoting something you know about or is your passion makes the process a lot easier. Great post though, Tom. Now is your chance to team up with The Home Depot and share in the continued growth of the most successful nationally-known home improvement retailer. By joining our affiliate program, you can start earning a profit on every qualified sale you refer to homedepot.com. It is a simple process, and the more customers you have purchase - the more you earn! With website builders, you get what you pay for. While they have plenty of free templates, more professional-looking websites will always cost more money. However, this investment could be worth it, especially as a website is one of the few startup costs for affiliate marketers. The social media profiles you develop are dependent on your niche and target market.
Although it has a dynamic and well-designed website, PeerFly has a limited range of offers at any given time (around 8,000). On the upside, it does offer good commission/payout rates, lots of FAQs and educational information, and regular contests and reward programs that can substantially increase your bottom line. Based on online customer reviews, Peerfly enjoys a very high reputation amongst participating affiliates.
SkimLinks works very similarly to VigLinks in that it is designed for bloggers who don’t want to do a lot of hands-on work to participate in an affiliate program. SkimLinks also works much like VigLinks in that it uses a plugin or script to create dynamic links in your content to send visitors to higher paying offers from merchants. SkimLinks claims to work with over 24,000 merchants/advertisers. Adam Riemer is an Affiliate Veteran and leading Outsourced Affiliate Manager. He builds content sites as an Affiliate and the programs he manages only works with content sites and value adding partners. His company is known for removing adware, trademark bidders and coupon sites that poach from merchants and other Affiliates by ranking for url + coupons and then growing a value adding program ethically and responsibly. Follow Adam on Twitter at @rollerblader.